A developmental decline in the learning-promoting effects of infant-directed speech for infants of mothers with chronically elevated symptoms of depression

Abstract

Infants of mothers who varied in symptoms of depression were tested at 4 and 12 months of age for their ability to associate a segment of an unfamiliar non-depressed mother’s infant-directed speech (IDS) with a face. At 4 months, all infants learned the voice-face association. At 12 months, despite the fact that none of the mothers were still clinically depressed, infants of mothers with chronically elevated self-reported depressive symptoms, and infants of mothers with elevated self-reported depressive symptoms at 4 months but not 12 months, on average did not learn the association. For infants of mothers diagnosed with depression in remission, learning at 12 months was negatively correlated with the postpartum duration of the mother’s depressive episode. At neither age did extent of pitch modulation in the IDS segments correlate with infant learning. However, learning scores at 12 months correlated significantly with concurrent maternal reports of infant receptive language development. The roles of the duration and timing of maternal depressive symptoms are discussed.

Maternal depression and the learning-promoting effects of infant-directed speech: Roles of maternal sensitivity, depression diagnosis, and speech acoustic cues

“…If the specific learned irrelevance hypothesis is correct, then infants must learn to tune-out their mother’ IDS relatively early in the first year, because poor response to maternal IDS by these infants is present as early as 4 months postpartum (Kaplan & Owren, 1994), and remains constant throughout the first year. In contrast, evidence suggests that generalized learned irrelevance, inferred based on learning failures by infants of depressed mothers in response to “normal” IDS recorded from non-depressed mothers, does not occur in infants of continuously depressed mothers until approximately 8 months postpartum (Kaplan et al, 2012). But both in the case of learning in response to the infant’s own depressed mother’s IDS, and in the case of learning in response to an unfamiliar non-depressed mother’s IDS for infants of depressed mothers, responding appears to depend on experience.…”

“…The fact that infants of insensitive mothers become unresponsive even to “normal-sounding” IDS recorded from unfamiliar non-depressed mothers (Kaplan et al, 2011; Kaplan et al, 2012), and “hyper-responsive” to IDS recorded from unfamiliar, non-depressed fathers (Kaplan et al, 2010), suggests that the acquired significance and non-significance of IDS for infants in their day-to-day interactions transfers to subsequently encountered IDS, and may in some situations override its acoustic salience in determining infant responding.…”

“…In one study, the strength of the associative learning among infants of depressed mothers in response to non-depressed mothers’ IDS was inversely proportion to the postpartum duration of the infant’s own mother’s depression (Kaplan et al, 2004). In another study, individual infants of depressed mothers were found to exhibit significant learning in response to an unfamiliar non-depressed mother’s IDS at 4 months, but not at 12 months (Kaplan, Danko, Kalinka, & Cejka, 2012). Finally, 12-month-old infants of currently depressed mothers with perinatal depression onset did not exhibit significant voice–face associative learning in response to an unfamiliar non-depressed mother’s IDS, whereas 12-month-old infants of currently depressed mothers with later depression onset (mean duration of 4 months) did (Kaplan, Danko, Diaz, & Kalinka, 2011).…”

A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial of sertraline for postpartum depression

“…In contrast, the second most common reason women did not enroll in the study was the concern about taking a medication in the postnatal period, particularly while nursing their infant. As untreated maternal MDD can have deleterious consequences for the offspring (Murray et al 1996; Reck et al 2004; Reck et al 2012; Kaplan et al 2012), studies investigating the effectiveness and tolerability of antidepressants during the postnatal period are of vital importance.…”

“…PMD impairs functioning of the mother, which may affect her relationship with and ability to care for her infant (Murray et al 1996; Reck et al 2004; Reck et al 2012; Kaplan et al 2012). Left untreated, women who have experienced PMD are at increased risk for future depressive episodes, both puerperally and in general (Philipps and O’Hara 1991; Cooper and Murray 1995).…”